Ms. Colby of Houghton Mifflin puts the state of affairs politely: “I think the open-source movement is opening a whole new conversation, and that is what is exciting to us.”

I suppose the feral fight-or-flight response the textbook industry feels as it stares at the growing open textbook movement could be called “exciting.” The story focuses mostly on Scott McNealy, formerly of Sun, and his contributions to the Curriki project.